LADY BUDGETDOWN: CHIPPEWA VALLEY SCHOOLS
CONSOLIDATING SCHOOLS: BUT KEEPING WHAT?
A reader sent me a breadcrumb.
Chippewa Valley Schools is considering restructuring its elementary footprint, including the possibility of consolidating schools.
The reader asked a different question:
While the district is looking at elementary buildings to find savings, what has happened in Central Office?
So I followed the breadcrumb.
And this one came with a timeline.
📜 2019
Amy Yednock became an Instructional Technology Coordinator.
Sarah Monnier-White, who had previously served as an Instructional Technology Coordinator, moved into the district's technology leadership position.
📜 JUNE 2021
Chippewa Valley's Board considered three additional Instructional Technology Coordinator appointments:
Dawn Berendt
Lauren Krumholz
Jessica Thoel
Here's the important part.
The district's own Board packet described each of those three appointments as filling a "new vacancy."
Not a retirement.
Not a resignation.
A new vacancy.
Three new coordinator positions.
📜 JULY 2021
The district's Central Office Administrator contract list now showed four technology coordinator positions:
Amy Yednock — 10 months
Dawn Berendt — 10 months
Lauren Krumholz — 10 months
Jessica Thoel — 10 months
So during the COVID era, the district expanded this structure to four 10-month technology coordinator positions.
📜 2024
Ryan Horne was appointed Instructional Technology Coordinator following a resignation.
The person changed.
The position remained.
📜 TODAY
Chippewa Valley still lists four Instructional Technology Coordinators, now under an Executive Director of Technology:
Sarah Monnier-White — Executive Director of Technology
2025 gross wages: $158,550.00
Dawn Berendt — Instructional Technology Coordinator
2025 gross wages: $115,687.50
Amy Yednock — Instructional Technology Coordinator
2025 gross wages: $115,272.62
Ryan Horne — Instructional Technology Coordinator
2025 gross wages: $107,343.34
Jessica Thoel — Instructional Technology Coordinator
2025 gross wages: $100,301.64
TOTAL 2025 GROSS WAGES: $597,155.10
Nearly $600,000.
And that's an important distinction: these are gross wages, not the district's total employer cost.
According to the Mackinac Center's methodology, those figures do not include employer-paid insurance, retirement costs, payroll taxes and other employer expenses.
So $597,155.10 isn't the entire price tag.
It's the wage line.
And none of this proves these employees aren't valuable.
It doesn't prove technology coordinators aren't needed.
It doesn't prove eliminating these positions would solve Chippewa Valley's facility problem.
That's not what the ledger says.
The ledger says something much simpler:
In 2021, Chippewa Valley added three new Instructional Technology Coordinator positions.
Years later, the four-coordinator structure remains.
Today, those four coordinators plus the Executive Director of Technology receive $597,155.10 in annual gross wages.
And now the district is discussing elementary-school consolidation.
So if Chippewa Valley is going to have a serious conversation about restructuring, efficiency and saving money, shouldn't taxpayers be allowed to ask whether every part of the organizational chart is part of that conversation?
Not just the elementary schools.
Not just the buildings.
Central Office too.
I don't decide which positions Chippewa Valley needs.
I just put the receipts on the table.
And this receipt raises a pretty reasonable question:
If we're examining the cost of keeping schools open, are we also examining the cost of the administrative structures we've chosen to keep?
The ledger doesn't answer that question.
Chippewa Valley does.
👑 With receipts and respect.
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